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I've got a Winegard HD7694P installed right now, about 25ft high. No pre-amp. I'm struggling to maintain good signal strength with a couple of channels (Fox, ABC, PBS) which are 40-46 miles away. Could I just add a mast-mounted pre-amp and solve the issue, or is a different antenna recommended? Thanks for the help!

Thank you for the signal report. You say your antenna is 25ft high, but you used 10ft for your signal report. Please redo your report at 25 ft; it makes a difference with 2Edge signals.

A preamp will help with the weak 2Edge Fox signal at 140 degrees, but it might be overloaded by KNIC at 115 degrees. A more directional UHF antenna might be necessary. Try a medium gain preamp that is less likely to be overloaded than a high gain preamp, before switching antennas. Perhaps an Antennas Direct Juice or a Channel Master 7778.

ABC and PBS are VHF, so you might be able to use the 7694 just for VHF or have a separate VHF antenna.

Thank you for the signal report. You say your antenna is 25ft high, but you used 10ft for your signal report. Please redo your report at 25 ft; it makes a difference with 2Edge signals.

A preamp will help with the weak 2Edge Fox signal at 140 degrees, but it might be overloaded by KNIC at 115 degrees. A more directional UHF antenna might be necessary. Try a medium gain preamp that is less likely to be overloaded than a high gain preamp, before switching antennas. Perhaps an Antennas Direct Juice or a Channel Master 7778.

ABC and PBS are VHF, so you might be able to use the 7694 just for VHF or have a separate VHF antenna.

You really outdid yourself! Thank you so much for providing this information. I'm bookmarking all this stuff for future reference. So it seems that I'm not in an ideal location to receive a strong signal for many of the San Antonio stations.

So it seems that I'm not in an ideal location to receive a strong signal for many of the San Antonio stations.

That is true, you are not in an ideal location to receive them, but I have a few ideas you might want to try.

You need a preamp for the weaker channels from San Antonio, but KNIC is strong enough to cause overload. You could order a custom bandstop filter to attenuate real channel 18, but ChannelPlus makes a notch filter that is less expensive which might work.

If the antenna is outside, the coax shield should be grounded with a grounding block that is connected to the house electrical system ground with 10 gauge copper wire for electrical safety and to reject interference. For further compliance with the electrical code (NEC), the mast should also be grounded in a similar manner to drain any buildup of static charge which will tend to discourage a strike, but the system will not survive a direct strike.

If this were a "start from square one"scenario, what might you recommend?

Interesting question. There a number of possibilities, none of which I can guarantee, because I don't even know what your location looks like from the ground or in a satellite view.

I would probably consider a two-antenna solution, one for UHF and one for VHF-High. The UHF antenna would be an HDB91X because it has a narrow beamwidth to help reject KNIC when it is aimed at San Antonio and has a tilt feature that would allow you to tilt the front end of the antenna up. The upward tilt might help capture the signals coming down from the peak of the hill that is just before your location.https://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?p=hdb91x

I would probably consider a two-antenna solution, one for UHF and one for VHF-High. The UHF antenna would be an HDB91X because it has a narrow beamwidth to help reject KNIC when it is aimed at San Antonio and has a tilt feature that would allow you to tilt the front end of the antenna up.

I notice a significant difference between the signal level of KNIC calculated by tvfool.com and RabbitEars.info. Tvfool shows KNIC 48.3 dB stronger than FOX while RabbitEars says 32.3 dB. That makes it hard to determine if preamp overload would exist or not. I would doubt overload will occur with a Juice preamp.

The HD7694P is a pretty good VHF antenna. Probably similar to the Stellar Labs VHF antenna.

I’d try a preamp before a new antenna. If that doesn’t work I’d try an HD7698P as that has about 2 dB more gain on VHF than the 7694 plus has about 4 dB less reception at 25 degrees off axis on channel 18 as well as several more dB gain on UHF.

Another option is to find if another location or height works better with your existing antenna. ( read “siting the antenna” in hdtvprmer.com)